Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 7 Jun 2000

Vol. 520 No. 4

Private Members' Business. - Literacy and Numeracy Problems: Motion.

Mr. R. Bruton:

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

–noting

–the lengthy delays in obtaining assessments of children who have special education needs,

–the evidence of serious literacy and numeracy problems in schools and among school leavers;

–the close correlation between literacy and numeracy problems and early school leaving;

–the high concentration of poor literacy and numeracy among the least well-off families;

–the evidence of serious shortcomings in remedial education services;

–condemns the Government for its failure to develop a strategy to tackle the high level of under performance in literacy and numeracy in the Irish education system, and

–calls for

–the collation of the results from standardised literacy and numeracy tests with teachers' opinions on the performance of their pupils, to yield a detailed picture of our literacy problems;

–the provision of a legally enforceable entitlement to an assessment of the education needs and support services for a child exhibiting difficulties;

–the funding of a development plan for the provision of learning support services to include:

–the establishment of a national committee on literacy and numeracy, to advise on strategy and resource needs;

–the appointment of a national director of learning support services;

–the development of specialist in-service training for learning support teachers to the highest international standards;

–the development of a speech therapy service within the education services;

–the promotion of new models for the use of remedial services and resource teaching in schools;

–regular reviews of the outcomes of remedial support; and

–an examination of the way in which the general curriculum structure at primary level impacts on attainment in literacy and numeracy,

and

–the establishment, on a professional footing, of adult numeracy and literacy services.

I wish to share my time with Deputies Timmins, Crawford, McGinley, McGrath, Perry, John Browne (Carlow-Kilkenny) and Ring.

Acting Chairman:

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. R. Bruton:

The Government has been in office for three years and during that time it has had the opportunity to spend an extra £804 million on our education sector. Only a tiny proportion of that money was devoted to tackling the problems of the many people whom our education system has consistently failed. This debate relates to those whose concerns are not properly reflected in the priorities set by the Government. Who are we fooling when we talk about Ireland having the best education system in the world? The reality is much different. I will outline ten facts which will illustrate the grim realities of our education system to the House. These issues have not received the priority they deserve.

First, today in our schools 45,000 children have serious reading and writing problems. This figure, recently released by the outgoing Minister, represents 10% of all children in primary education and a deterioration of one-third in the figure during the 1990s. The number of children in our primary education system who have serious reading and writing problems is getting worse. Second, 102,000 young people aged between 16 and 25, who are products of the new education system, have seriously defective reading skills, as reflected in surveys of adult literacy. That represents 17% of young people which is almost double the figure in other advanced countries surveyed at that time.

Third, in a recent survey conducted by Fine Gael, we discovered that 65% of parents of children with special needs – those suffering from dyslexia, ADD or more serious disabilities such as autism or Down's syndrome – had to pay privately for an assessment of their child's needs. Fourth, it is even more worrying that almost half those parents reported that as a result of that assessment a set of needs was identified for their children and almost none of them was being provided. Half of those who went to the trouble of getting their children assessed found that at the end of the day the school was unable to deliver the necessary supports. That is a sad indictment of the Government.

Fifth, recent surveys by the OECD demonstrated that the rate of school absenteeism in Ireland is double that in most European countries. The sad fact is that survey after survey has highlighted that in disadvantaged parts of Dublin as many as a quarter of children are regularly absent and one-eighth are absent more than half the time. That is a chronic problem and Ireland is way out of line with its European partners. The prospect for those children is that they will drop out of school early.

Sixth, we have also had evidence during the Government's stewardship of its impact on the remedial education system. Despite the best efforts of the many teachers involved in that field, the impact is sadly lacking. The education research centres states: "Remedial teaching in schools which are designated as disadvantaged is not achieving any significant advance in the relative position of pupils who participate in the programme". Research uncovered a system where teachers are not properly resourced as they receive no in-service training or proper back-up and materials. They are totally over-stretched in terms of the number of children they try to serve. They are not able to make the contacts and links with parents that are necessary to make remediation a success. They are predominantly working the withdrawal system which takes the child away from the classroom rather than acting as a support to the class teacher. The remedial model in Ireland is under-resourced and supported and it is not making the necessary impact. Nothing is being done about it. The Government only talked about reviewing the guidelines. This issue is about more remedial teachers, better programmes and proper direction and back-up, not guidelines. Other Members will outline their experiences of that service.

Seventh, the survey also revealed that 85% of pupils in need of remedial support in mathematics receive none. The result is an education system, about which we pretend to be proud and talk of as the best in the world, that reinforces inequalities and does not remove them.

Eighth, the child of an unskilled manual worker is eight times less likely to reach third level than a child from a professional background. We have failed dismally to break that cycle of deprivation which traps people. Education in a republic such as ours is supposed to be the great source of equality of opportunity. That is not the case in Ireland. We stand out among our European colleagues in failing to provide children who do not succeed first time round with a second chance and in terms of the high number of pupils who drop out without adequate support. We do not open our colleges and universities to children from disadvantaged areas. In such areas in my own constituency reading levels are three times worse than the figure of 10% recorded nationally. We are reinforcing disadvantage in our education system.

Ninth, what is the consequence of that? Students who leave school with no qualifications are ten times more likely to be unemployed than third level graduates. That is the dream we create for those whom the education system fails. It is a life on the margins for many and that will characterise more and more those who fail to succeed in our education system. If we leave things as they are we will produce the long-term unemployed of tomorrow from our schools today. This issue needs to be taken more seriously by the Government.

The final fact belying the truth about our education system is that only one in ten adults with literacy problems participates in any form of adult education. We talk about introducing such programmes but we are only scratching at the surface of the problem and reaching a tiny fraction of those who need support. While I applaud the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science for increasing budgets, we are still a long way from providing adult literacy programmes on a professional footing about which we could stand up and be proud.

Article 42 of the Constitution is the bedrock on which education is based. It imposes on the State the obligation to provide free primary education. It also imposes on the State the obligation that it shall require, in view of actual conditions, that children receive a certain minimum education. The reality is that conditions have never been more favourable but the outcome for children who have difficulties has never been worse. I have no hesitation in condemning the Government in the motion because the greatest is expected of those who have opportunities. The Government came into office with £800 million to spend on education over three years, an increase of one-third in its budget. We would have said here is the opportunity when literacy will become a thing of the past. The opposite is the case.

The Department of Education and Science formally committed itself to a target in the national anti-poverty strategy in 1995 to eliminate literacy problems in our primary schools within five years. That time has come and gone and we have discovered in the past decade that literacy standards in our schools got worse, not better. We need radical new models and that is what I call for in the motion. We need more than funds and we must examine this problem in a more radical manner. The INTO and the TUI have highlighted the problems on disadvantage and literacy. They and the ASTI have called for millennium initiatives to deal with literacy in our schools, but their calls are falling on deaf ears. This is not a priority for the Government. Not one extra remedial teacher has been given to a disadvantaged school since the Government took office. It has provided more remedial teachers but none to the disadvantaged schools where the exam results are the worst.

As the motion says, we call for a radical change. This includes the development of speech therapy services, a specialist in-service training for learning support teachers to the highest international standards, proper resourcing of remedial education and learning support, new models for the use of remedial services in our schools, proper resources for resource teaching in our schools and regular reviews of the outcomes of remedial support. We must look afresh at the curriculum, at the whole model of school so that those who are now being turned away from our schools because of the way we run the education system will be cherished by them. We also need to put an end to the blight that is too much a feature of the education system. I commend the motion to the House.

Mr. Timmins:

I compliment Deputy Richard Bruton on moving this detailed motion. Sometimes when the Opposition introduces proposals or motions in the House the Government can bat them away as it outlines the measures it has taken and proposes to take. While I acknowledge that steps have been taken in recent years to improve matters, the sad fact remains that the five areas referred to in the motion are an indictment on us all.

Given the performance of the economy, the improvements made in the area of special needs education are virtually insignificant. When the Minister replies to the motion he will outline the increased funding, the availability of remedial teachers to all and the improvement in the provision and delivery of support services for all categories of pupils with special education needs, at both primary and second level. From this side of the House many Members will refer to the remedial teacher who spends more time in the car than in the classroom, to the autistic child who has nowhere to go and to the mother who cannot afford speech therapy. We should not get bogged down in these shortcomings but go to the heart of the matter and acknowledge that through indifference, a lack of knowledge on our part or a lack of funding, we have failed many people over the generations because we failed to recognise or address their needs.

Most of us were lucky enough not to have to stand in the back of the classroom. We take it as a given right that we can read a newspaper or a journal. Our challenge is to recognise what is our Goldenbridge or Madonna House. In time, the neglect of our special educational needs will be seen as our shame of the 1990s and the early years of this century.

I do not know what the Minister will tell the House, but he would do a great service to many people who have been through the system and to many children and parents currently using it if he acknowledged, on behalf of us all, that an injustice has been done, and, recognising that, assured us that he is seeking not just to improve things, but to put in place a service that will meet the needs of all. I realise this cannot be done overnight, but if the will is there it can eventually be achieved.

While campaigning in the 1997 general election, not one person mentioned dyslexia to me, yet just two years later, on the first day of the local elections campaign, four different families raised the matter with me. They heard about it on the Pat Kenny Show. For them it existed in 1997 but they did not know what it was. At every opportunity afforded to me, here or elsewhere, I have tried to raise this matter. The weekend before last I met two mothers who asked me what is being done for their children who are dyslexic. They outlined to me how they have to drive so far for grinds, the cost involved and they questioned their treatment with regard to the Constitution and its commitment to education.

Dyslexia affects people of all abilities, but there has been a failure on our part to recognise it. Most of the campaigners involved in special needs education have a personal connection. While I know this will not go down well with many of my colleagues, I contend that many teachers, including principals and remedial teachers, cannot recognise when a child is dyslexic. They cannot do so because the third level curriculum does not adequately cater for it. It if is recognised often they cannot address it as their approach is too peripheral and general. It is the equivalent of asking a GP to carry out an orthopaedic procedure or for a front row to stand in as out-half.

We must have a radical rethink to address this problem. Professor Winifred Danwitz of College New Rochelle carried out research on Death Row which indicated that 85% of inmates fell into the special or particular needs category. Research at a juvenile delinquent centre in Scotland showed that 50% of the children surveyed were dyslexic, as opposed to 4% to 8% of the general population.

People with dyslexia normally have a higher than average IQ and they can disguise the fact that they are dyslexic. However, in their frustration they hit back at society. If we address these difficulties we will not have a problem with prison spaces or an increase in violence. With a specialist approach what seems impossible can be achieved.

There is an anomaly in the economy in that 200,000 people are in receipt of unemployment supports, while every year 10,000 people leave school early. They are the people with reading difficulties. We meet their mothers and wives every day of the week who tell us that the FÁS course they are on, and which they enjoyed, is coming to an end. As a result they are suffering from depression and cannot return to work. They do not want to work because they cannot, for example, read a sign which warns that when entering a designated area that hard hats must be worn. We are obliged to provide these people with a service that will address this difficulty. It can be done if the will is there, but the Minister has a very difficult job to impress on the civil servants in his Department that the problem exists.

Mr. Crawford:

I thank Deputy Richard Bruton for raising this very important matter. Despite all the talk of the Celtic tiger and the massive increase in revenue, the children in need of remedial and resource teachers are still being ignored, especially in rural areas. In some cases one remedial teacher is expected to give a service to five schools. As already stated in the House last Thursday, three County Monaghan schools will have teachers removed due to the lack of one pupil on a given day. I am very disappointed by the lack of support from the Minister and his Department in the light of the problems in the Border area and the specific issues arising in the schools there. Will he reconsider the position of these three teachers and provide a proper remedial resource service to ensure that young people with difficulty receive a basic education?

St. Daig's national school, one of the schools mentioned, got its first remedial teacher in September 1999. She has now been placed on a panel, and, if the Minister does not do something about it, she will be replaced by another teacher who will not have any training in remedial work. This arises because the school was one pupil short due to a tragic loss of a child and another being sick on a given day. The girls' school in Castleblayney has no remedial or resource teacher on the staff and no access to educational psychologists. Ten children are awaiting educational assessment. The authorities in this school, on the same site as Our Lady's secondary school, which has disadvantaged status, cannot understand the lack of equal treatment. That school has the same right to be declared disadvantaged. If this happened it would retain its teacher.

The other school to which I referred sent me a long letter. It will lose a teacher if nothing is done about it. The letter states:

Our board of management has campaigned for over four years for a full time remedial appointment to cater for the needs of some 25 children who are educationally disadvantaged. They are at present catered for by a remedial teacher who has to commute between four schools in the parish. A thankless job for anyone, but one undertaken without complaint by the teacher in question. To date, our pleas for help have fallen on deaf ears. Platitudes and procrastination would seem to be the order of the day. No Celtic tiger here, more like a pussycat.

With this group we have five children who have been psychologically assessed as being on or below the tenth percentile and, as such, are entitled to a resources teacher. We got five hours of resource teaching per week. This means one hour weekly per child, or, to be more precise, 12 minutes per day per child, to resolve this issue. If this is a serious effort to tackle educational disadvantage I do not buy into it.

Added to this there are three children who suffer from emotional disorders, such as attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyper-active disorders, who are not even entitled to resource teacher hours. So, we ask, who is fooling who, where. The staff at our school are under no illusions in this regard.

This letter typifies the reality of the situation. The Border area has suffered significantly over recent years. There is supposed to be a peace dividend but the Border area, in terms of the 25 teachers being lost nationally, is being asked to lose three locally. I beg the Minister to reconsider the situation before it is too late.

Mr. McGinley:

It is a widely accepted educational fact that some children cannot survive in an ordinary classroom situation. For one reason or another, they cannot keep pace with class progress. Remedial or special education is essential for such children to overcome their difficulties. They cannot succeed in a classroom where there may be up to 30 other pupils. They need individual attention to survive. In an ordinary classroom, a teacher cannot provide this level of attention because there are many other demands on his or her time. Individual attention is impossible.

The current standard of remedial teaching available in primary schools is at best piecemeal and more often threadbare and wholly inadequate. I know areas where one remedial teacher must cover up to five or six different schools. The unfortunate teacher is obliged to spend more time travelling between schools than in the classroom. Such a service is nothing more than a shrivelled fig leaf; it is completely inadequate.

Any primary school with four or five teachers should also have the full-time services of a remedial teacher. Priority must be given to remedial teaching at primary level. The earlier the service is provided for those who need it, the more successful it will be. The problem must be identified as soon as possible in the child's school career and immediately addressed. If prompt action is taken, remedial education helps children enormously and often enables them to return to a mainstream classroom.

A proper educational psychology service is a necessity to ensure that pupils with learning difficulties can be identified at the earliest possible age. The educational psychology service available at present is wholly inadequate. It is scandalous that Donegal has for so long been left without a resident educational psychologist and that the problem is only now being recognised. It is not unusual to have pupils waiting several years for a proper psychological assessment, which is essential in identifying the child's problem and how best to rectify it. Often the task of assessing the pupil is left to the class teacher who may not have the qualifications or training for such a sensitive task. Every school child referred for assessment is entitled to have such an assessment carried out within weeks. It is unacceptable that there should be a waiting list of a year and often longer. Time is of crucial importance.

Special facilities must be provided for remedial teachers. For example, there should be a classroom for remedial teaching in every primary school with four or more classrooms. It is unacceptable that remedial teachers are placed in the corner of an ordinary classroom, the cloakroom or sometimes in the corridor. I am aware of some schools where this is the case. Proper accommodation and facilities are an essential ingredient of the service.

Education is a passport to life but our educational system leads to high levels of literacy and numeracy problems, as Deputy Bruton pointed out. It is obvious that the current remedial service is completely inadequate. More remedial teachers are urgently required, particularly at primary level. It is the principle of a stitch in time. Mar fhocal scoir, ba mhaith liom tagairt a dhéanamh do scoileanna sa Ghaeltacht. Beidh deacrachtaí acu maidir le ábhair a chur ar fáil do dhaltaí Gaeltachta.

Mr. McGrath:

I also welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on education. We have for some time fooled ourselves into thinking that we have a tremendous educational system and that all children are being looked after equally. The Constitution states that everybody must be treated equally, but the reality of our educational system is that, unfortunately, many children do not get the opportunities they deserve. They do not have the opportunity to develop their talents and, unfortunately, many of them leave school without the equipment to bring them through life.

There is a system of remedial teaching around the country and in fairness to many of the teachers working in this service, they do their best with very scant means. As many of my colleagues outlined, some remedial teachers must travel from one school to another, particularly in rural Ireland, trying to cope with the students entrusted to them. Unfortunately, some teachers must cope with pupils in five different schools. They spend much time travelling from one school to another without guidance on how they should deal with the children, what type of service should be given to them and whether it is effective. Is there any assessment of the long-term benefits that accrue from that service?

As a school teacher, I am strongly of the opinion that if remedial education is to help in any way, a child needs it on a regular basis. I define this as each child needing a session every day. Having a remedial teacher in a school for half a day or even a full day a week is not effective because the child needs continual specialist education over a period to help him or her with their difficulties. This is ideally achieved by the teacher dealing with him or her on a one-to-one basis every day. However, this cannot happen when a remedial teacher must deal with many schools and must travel between them.

The Minister will probably ask what I suggest is the solution to this problem. How does one cope with the problem in rural areas where schools do not have many pupils and they are spread over an area? As I suggested previously, although I do not know if it has ever been analysed in the Department, part-time teachers should be used. Why not take in part-time teachers for primary schools? Many teachers are now taking early retirement and they would be happy to do a small amount of teaching on a regular basis. They should be brought into schools for an hour each day and paid for their work. They have the expertise and the knowledge because they taught for years. They could provide a valuable service and this suggestion should be considered.

Regarding facilities for remedial teachers in some schools, it is an insult to many of them that they must give tuition in corridors, cloakrooms or elsewhere. The service is being provided on a shoe string. This is reflected in the type of services that exist. What type of grant aid is available for books or equipment? What about the use of modern technology for dealing with particular difficulties? Is grant aid available in that regard?

There is a need for remedial teaching in second level schools. To a great extent, the remedial services in second level schools are not adequate. I recently received a letter from a pupil in a school that I visited and I was amazed at its contents and the way it was set out. This pupil had already spent approximately nine years in school. There is an urgent need to review the remedial services.

Mr. Perry:

I recently sent out a research questionnaire to teachers involved in providing services for children with learning difficulties or disabilities that create special educational needs in County Sligo and I was shocked at the findings. One principal commented, "please, we need educational psychologists. Psychologists should go to schools and all concerned draw up programmes. There is little communication between health boards in this area." Another comment was:

I feel that integration in principle is very good. However, back up services are poor. Funding is inadequate and much is left to the individual class teacher. In special schools teachers are 1:8 pupils. However, in mainstream schools, an allowance is not made for this.

A further comment was:

Schools, parents and pupils should be provided with necessary aids, finances, etc. They should not have to go and beg or fight for them. Having a shared support teacher between five schools is paying only lip service to remedial education. Each child gets ten to 15 minutes twice a week. Group work can be unsatisfactory as each child is experiencing different problems and needs one to one attention. I feel that the amount of resources and teachers available for children with special needs is unsatisfactory. More money needs to be spent at national level for children with special needs.

The level of resources and teachers available for children with special needs is unsatisfactory. More money needs to be spent at national level for children with special needs. The principal believes the questionnaire is loaded towards assuming that one believes integration is right for all children, whereas there should be a choice for parents to opt for a special class or school or for a normal system. The principal likes the idea of integration. A child who attends his local school is entitled to the same services as a child who attends a special school. A great deal of back-up is needed for integration to succeed. If support is not provided, integration will not work and the child will lose out.

Special needs education is so important that no longer should we only say that each school has a remedial teacher but that the fuller needs of the children concerned should be addressed by providing a teacher for at least three two teacher schools in one cluster. We should also have access to educational psychologists as required. The principal cannot get four children assessed by an educational psychologist and some of these will leave the national school system in a year or so.

A principal in one of the schools in my county feels it is important to keep children with their peers in the local school but that teachers need more training, resources and physical back-up to help them in their new task of teaching children with special needs. Having a child with special needs should not take from the teaching time allowed for the other 25 to 30 children. We do not have a special plan as the children with special needs are treated as part of the whole school. The experts in this area are the remedial and resource teachers. They should be asked to devise plays, etc. Extra capitation grants are needed for special needs pupils in ordinary schools.

I compliment Deputy Richard Bruton for raising this important issue. It is clear from the replies of 30 schools in my county to 30 questionnaires that there are not any facilities for remedial teaching, not to mention the huge area of dyslexia. At a time of unprecedented wealth, it is a sad indictment that so many schools and principals in County Sligo feel aggrieved at the lack of services and commitment. There is something wrong with the Department which has allowed that to happen at a time when we have millions of pounds to spend. Pupils who cannot read are leaving primary school. Dyslexia is a problem for many parents. I hope the Minister will respond positively to the debate.

Mr. Browne

(Carlow-Kilkenny): We have a serious problem in education and it is up to the Minister to fill the vacuum which has existed for many years, at a time when the economy is booming, according to the experts. I taught for almost 30 years and the absence of a psychological service was an injustice to all the children during that time. The absence of a psychological service now is continuing the damage.

Will the Minister explain the appointment of 25 psychologists at Christmas?

When the teachers met in January they were told that 25 psychologists had been appointed. They were then told at a meeting of congress that a further 25 had been appointed, which brought the total to 50. When the Minister was on the radio recently with Deputy Richard Bruton he announced a further 50 appointments. Is the Minister adopting a Green Party policy of recycling psychologists? Is he reappointing the 50 psychologists? The teachers want to know how many are in position.

Dr. Woods:

I will tell the Deputy.

Mr. Browne

(Carlow-Kilkenny): I am delighted. I would like to be able to tell the teachers they are in position.

Dr. Woods:

The difference is I appointed them.

Mr. R. Bruton:

Three years late.

Mr. Browne

(Carlow-Kilkenny): When will they take up their positions and start working? If there were 250 applicants for the positions advertised in November, why can the Minister not appoint more psychologists given the shortage? Why blame teachers for the fact that literacy levels are higher here than in other European countries? We do not realise we are teaching Irish as well as English or that many children need psychological help for behavioural or learning difficulties.

Some of my teaching colleagues are upset that the south-east, which has no Minister, has the worst record when it comes to the appointment of psychologists. One Minister managed to get two psychologists for his county, although I presume that was done on merit alone. In the interest of cherishing all the children of the nation equally and in an attempt to honour Pearse and his colleagues, I ask the Minister to ensure that the appointment of psychologists is on a fair basis because children throughout the country need to get their rightful share.

I have tabled a parliamentary question to the Minister for answer tomorrow on the appointment of class assistants for junior infants. In my former school 35 new junior infants will start in September and the teacher will not only be expected to teach them but to train them to stay in the classroom. My colleague from Wicklow was critical of teachers but I assure him that one would need more than a captain and an army in a classroom when five junior infants decide they want to go to the toilet at the same time.

Mr. Timmins:

I knew he would not be able to let it pass.

Mr. Browne

(Carlow-Kilkenny): What happens when the teacher has to leave the classroom to look after them? Most teachers will go to Heaven but those who teach junior infants will go straight to Heaven because they are masters of every trade. They must be psychologists, nannies, caretakers, etc. At least those of us who worked in the classroom have that consolation.

Dr. Woods:

I was a teacher once but because I became a politician I will probably not go to Heaven.

Mr. Ring:

As someone who is not a teacher, I will try to represent a broader section of the people. I wish well those doing the junior and the leaving certificates. As someone who has a child doing the leaving certificate, I am opposed to children's lives being dependent on the leaving certificate, which is the most important examination they must do during their lifetime. Last weekend in my constituency the sister of a young girl who is doing the leaving certificate was killed in a road accident. That young girl is under great pressure. That is the type of pressure on children today. I listened to programmes on local radio and on RTE yesterday about the leaving certificate during which they hyped it up. This upsets young people and puts more pressure on them. I want to know the Minister's views on assessment. I am not afraid to say I do not agree with one examination deciding what a student will do or how he or she will fare for the rest of his or her life. It is wrong and it is time we put a system in place so that children who may not perform well on the day of an examination will have a second chance.

I take this opportunity to congratulate Deputy Richard Bruton for tabling this motion this evening. I also congratulate him for working hard on his brief in recent years and for highlighting the difficult problems in education.

I listened to my colleague speaking about the education system. Three months ago a woman came into my clinic in County Mayo and she did not know what was wrong with her child who was in sixth class. The child was not able to write or to learn and she said she would have to get him assessed. The child was diagnosed as having dyslexia. I was annoyed to see that woman crying in my constituency office but I was more upset that she had to pay for her child's assessment, although she and her husband were on social welfare. I tabled a number of parliamentary questions to the Minister to find out what the Department would do for that child who cannot read or write and who will be going to secondary school next September.

We are told our education system is the great est system in the world. If that is true, how could a child slip through the net and move from first class to sixth class without being able to read or write? The mother, a social welfare recipient, had to pay for the child to be assessed. That is not a wonderful or fair system. There is something wrong when that happens. Recently, I attended a meeting in Castlebar of 80 parents of children with special needs. These parents are upset, frustrated and annoyed listening to Government spin doctors talk about the Celtic tiger and how the economy has grown. The Minister for Finance says we should be partying because there is so much money in the country.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle:

I am reluctant to intervene but the Deputy's time has expired.

Mr. Ring:

There was not any speech therapist available for these children with special needs. If there is money available we should not be ashamed to put it into education, especially for those with special needs.

Minister for Education and Science (Dr. Woods):

I wish to share my time with the Minister of State, Deputy Hanafin.

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"welcomes the greatly increased levels of investment in education being made by the Government and, in particular, the introduction of measures by the Minister for Education and Science to prioritise the tackling of literacy and numeracy and educational disadvantage."

As Minister, I am deeply committed to the development of education. It is the engine that drives the Celtic tiger. It is through education that we, as a people, now have the wealth and resources to develop a truly inclusive society and that is what this Government is doing. We have never invested as much in education as we are investing this year. The Government has made education a top priority for its term of office and, on day one of my appointment, I set as my key priorities the urgent tackling of literacy, numeracy, special needs and disadvantage. We will press on with major developments at the leading edge of education, research and development but this time we will ensure that those who are disadvantaged or have special needs get extra special support and attention. We had problems in the past but we are making great progress in tackling them and we will do much better.

I am glad to have an opportunity to report on the progress the Government has made since taking office in 1997. Conscious of the work that remains to be done, I will set out the strategies that are in place to tackle the serious problems which continue to confront some pupils. Over the past three years, this Government has achieved success across a number of fronts in education, from pre-school to adult education and beyond. It has increased the education budget to £3.294 billion, a 43% increase on the 1997 budget; provided £13.35 million this year for the largest ever programme of teacher in-career development – this represents a 100% increase on the 1997 allocation; enacted the first Education Act and implemented many of its elements; undertaken a wide-ranging review of school attendance legislation culminating in the Education Welfare Bill which is progressing though this House; published the first Teaching Council Bill; published the first White Paper on Early Childhood Education – a blueprint for the development of early education; reduced pupil teacher ratios to 18:1 and 20.4:1 at primary level—

Mr. Browne

(Carlow-Kilkenny): That is fiction.

Dr. Woods:

It has ensured that every child with special needs in every school has access to remedial teaching. It has ensured that every child with a special need has an automatic right to have this need met in the education system. As a result of this the number of resource teachers assisting children with special needs in integrated settings in the primary system has been increased from 104 in October 1998 to 450 at present and the number of special needs assistants in the primary system has been increased from 299 to 1,095. It has ensured that since September 1999 the pupil teacher ratios in all special schools and special classes catering for children with disabilities have been reduced to the level recommended by the special education review committee. It has made funding of £845,000 available in the current year for the purchase of special equipment for children with special needs.

Despite this progress and these successes the Government is keenly aware that while it has made great strides in recent years much remains to be done. We cannot afford to be complacent. I am particularly concerned at the continuing evidence of literacy and numeracy difficulties in children leaving school and in the population generally. This cannot be allowed to continue. As I mentioned earlier, I have made this a priority for my time in office. We have always prided ourselves on the quality of our education yet, despite the high quality of our teachers, programmes and materials, recent figures show unacceptable levels of literacy in the population. I am determined to tackle literacy problems at all levels. We must ensure that no child will leave our primary schools without an adequate standard of literacy and numeracy. This is the legacy we must leave to those generations that will follow us. All citizens must be equipped with the basic skills they need to allow them to participate fully in, and contribute to, society.

National surveys of reading in primary schools have been carried out by my Department in co-operation with the Educational Research Centre from 1972 to date. The aim of the surveys is to monitor levels of English reading attainment in primary schools on an ongoing basis. Survey information shows that between 6.5% and 9.5% of Irish 11 year old pupils have serious literacy difficulties. The 1995 International Mathematics and Science Study, TIMMS, showed that the mean mathematics scores of Irish pupils in the class grades surveyed were higher than the corresponding international mean mathematics scores. Irish pupils were placed seventh of 16 countries in the third class survey and sixth of 17 countries in the fourth class survey. This data from both national and international surveys gives a detailed picture not only of our position in literacy and numeracy relative to other countries but also of the difficulties of a significant minority of pupils at different age levels.

I say all this merely to put matters into perspective, not as a sign that I am complacent. I am not. I am very aware of the problem but I am also convinced that it can be solved. My objective is to raise standards of literacy and numeracy, beginning at the levels of individual children and schools. My aim in allocating resources is to focus on the lowest functioning pupils and on the schools where the largest proportion of pupils achieve at a very low level. It is in these cases that the available resources can make a difference. With these children and in these schools we must focus on reading.

Reading is still the main avenue to education and to occupational and social success. It is essential not only to success in our daily lives but also to further learning throughout life which is so vital to our economic and social development. The Government has a range of strategies in place to support those pupils who are low achievers or who have serious difficulties in learning or numeracy.

The revised English primary curriculum places a major emphasis on the development of literacy skills. It focuses particularly on the prevention of reading difficulties and embodies state of the art guidelines on the development of reading as a whole language approach. It focuses also on the development of emerging literacy skills and phonetic awareness in pupils. The revised curriculum is being supported by a comprehensive programme of in-service education for teachers. Prepared under the guidance of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment it will have a major impact on raising literacy standards.

The remedial teacher is the backbone of our strategy for addressing the needs of pupils with serious learning difficulties. Since this Government took office it has significantly increased the number of remedial teachers in our schools. There are currently 1,463 remedial teachers allocated to primary schools. They cover every primary school. We have also increased the number of remedial teachers in second-level schools. There are now some 560 whole time equivalent posts in second-level schools.

Since September 1999 the remedial teacher service has been extended to every first and second- level school with a pupil teacher ratio of 10:1 or more. Schools with lower ratios are free to apply to my Department for remedial support where they can demonstrate a need for the service.

Mr. R. Bruton:

May I raise a question on that point?

Dr. Woods:

I do not have time, Deputy. Remedial teachers work with the weakest and provide these pupils with extra teaching support.

I will shortly publish revised guidelines on learning support. These guidelines are a direct response to the recommendations of a study on remedial education commissioned by my Department and carried out by the Education Research Centre. They have been drawn up following extensive consultation with representatives of parents, school management and teachers. They are at the cutting edge and embrace all that is best in remedial teaching.

The new guidelines will ensure that the objective of learning support will be more clearly identified. They will set the role of the teacher firmly in the context of a whole-school approach, with emphasis on the complementary roles and shared responsibilities of the class teacher and the learning support teacher.

Training for serving remedial teachers is being provided on postgraduate diploma courses in selected colleges of education and universities. This intensive training enables the remedial teachers to identify children with learning difficulties in both reading and mathematics, to diagnose the exact nature of those difficulties and to provide remedial tuition.

In addition, my Department financially supports many shorter courses for teachers in the remedial and special education areas. These are provided mainly through the network of education centres, teachers' associations and an extensive programme of summer courses for primary school teachers. The new guidelines will be underpinned by specific training for teachers.

As Minister for Education and Science, I would be seriously concerned that any parent of a special needs child should feel that the needs of his or her child are not being adequately addressed. Since taking office, this Government has undertaken an unprecedented level of development in special education services. Arising from a Government decision in October 1998, all children with special needs within the primary system now have an automatic entitlement to a response to their needs, irrespective of their disability or location. The response may take the form of resource teacher support, child care support or both, depending on the needs involved.

Already, as a result of this development, the number of resource teachers in the primary system has been increased from 104 in October 1998 to 450 at present. The number of special needs assistants helping children with special needs has been increased from 299 to 1,095 in the same per iod. I will continue to allocate further resources in response to need.

In addition, the special pupil teacher ratios applied to all special schools and special classes catering for children with special needs have been reduced to the level recommended by the Special Education Review Committee.

My Department is encountering significant difficulties in securing speech therapy services from the health boards to support special schools and special classes catering for children with speech and language difficulties. My colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, is aware of this difficulty and is seeking to address it.

As an interim measure in response to the shortages of professionals in these disciplines, and pending the outcome of the work of a task force, arrangements are being made to increase the number of places available for the coming academic year. The Higher Education Authority will also explore the possible use of postgraduate conversion courses.

The Government established a National Educational Psychological Service Agency with effect from 1 September 1999. This service is being developed on a phased basis over five years. Our objective is to ensure that all schools will have access to the service by the end of 2004. As part of this process, I have increased the number of psychologists in the service from 43 to almost 100 with effect from September 2000.

While these developments constitute a major advance in the quality of our special education services, I fully recognise that much more remains to be done. Where the parents of children with special needs are concerned, I am anxious that the system be made more responsive and supportive.

In this connection, I have asked a planning group within my Department to review our current approach to special education services. I have also asked the group to make recommendations on the arrangements which should be put in place to ensure the most effective provision of a high quality co-ordinated service for students with special needs. I expect to receive the report of the planning group in the near future and I assure the House that I will respond positively to any proposals which will support children with special needs and their parents.

We must be happy that the resources which we are putting into this area are raising standards and targeting those pupils most in need of assistance. All primary classes from first to sixth will be supplied with standardised, norm-referenced tests of literacy for use by their pupils. Teachers are also being provided with profiles of pupil achievement in English – the Drumcondra English Profiles – to complement the standardised tests.

The use of this combination of tests will assist class teachers in effectively monitoring the progress of their pupils and in identifying, at an early stage, those who may be experiencing reading difficulties. Such monitoring and early detection will result in earlier intervention and reduce the numbers of those with serious difficulties. I intend also to put in place a programme of national surveys of English reading at primary level. These will be done on a regular basis in conjunction with the Education Research Centre.

The national reading initiative was launched on 21 January and is a genuine effort to tackle the problem of poor reading in the population generally and to promote reading. The initiative acknowledges that the problem of low achievement and under-achievement is not just a school-based problem. It stresses the importance of parents encouraging their children to read by reading to them and by listening to their children reading.

The initiative is pursuing the twin objectives of raising public awareness of the importance of developing reading skills and helping to maximise the literacy support services that are already available. It is a community-wide initiative, collaborating with schools, libraries and voluntary community groups to target people who cannot read at all, people who cannot read very well and want to improve, people who can read but do not and people who read a good deal.

The initiative is running a number of national events and is also providing support for organisations that are engaging in activities designed to promote literacy development. The events proposed for the year cover a wide geographical spread and include people of all abilities and ages.

To focus our work in the area of reading, I am appointing a national director for literacy and a project team to get the maximum benefit from the steps we are taking. I will shortly outline the details of these plans and I expect the advertisements to fill these positions to appear in the national press in a matter of weeks.

The House will be aware that an international adult literacy survey of 12 countries conducted in 1995 and published in 1997 provided a profile of literacy skills of adults ages 16 to 64. The survey found that Ireland scored badly in the overall literacy tasks and indicated a serious problem in functional literacy among Irish adults. It showed that early school leavers, older adults and unemployed people were most at risk of literacy difficulties, with participation in adult education and training being least likely for those with the poorest skills.

The response of this Government has been quick and comprehensive. The provision in the education sector for adult literacy increased substantially from a base of £850,000 in 1997, when the Government took office, to £7.825 million in 2000. The national development plan provides for an investment of £73.8 million in the coming years in adult literacy, which will be supplemented by a £1 billion investment under a back to education initiative providing for an expansion of part-time Youthreach, PLC and VTOs options. This will become an important bridge from literacy tuition to certified learning points.

Recent Government initiatives in the area of adult literacy will be covered by my colleague, the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science, Deputy O'Dea, later in the debate. It is clear, however, that the Government has put considerable investment into the area.

A White Paper on adult education and lifelong learning is in the final stages of preparation and will be published very soon. It will deal in a comprehensive way with the Government's strategy on adult education, including adult literacy. It will deal also with the national and regional structures to be put in place to support adult education in Ireland.

As Minister, I am conscious that we must make our education system more responsive to and inclusive of individuals who are less advantaged, those who have special needs or who left the system in previous years without having access to the range of opportunities available today. They deserve a second chance.

To tackle disadvantage effectively, an all-encompassing strategy is needed. We need to intervene early, we must raise awareness of the benefits of early childhood education, we must assist parents in helping their children to learn and develop and we must raise standards in provision, giving priority to those most in need of assistance.

As Deputies will be aware, currently, at primary level, financial and staffing supports are allocated to those schools deemed to serve children associated with educational disadvantage and early school leaving. These designated schools receive enhanced capitation grants and many are allocated concessionary or ex-quota staffing. The ongoing expansion of the home-school-community liaison scheme promotes co-operation between parents and teachers in support of young people's learning. The Early Start pre-school project supports the transition from the home to school life of three to four year olds from disadvantaged backgrounds. These programmes are effective.

Schools in the urban and rural dimensions of Breaking the Cycle receive grants for books, teaching and learning materials and local initiatives and benefit from a range of other supports. Teachers deployed in the "Support Teacher" project assist children with disruptive, disturbed and withdrawn behaviours and help schools staffs in the formulation of policy.

Primary and second level schools are involved in the eight to 15 early school leaver initiative introduced by the Government in September 1998. The current projects will end on 30 June next and an evaluation report on their operation will be available in September. However, I am convinced of the usefulness of these projects and have decided to provide the resources for a new phase of the projects in the initiative from 1 July 2000 until 31 August 2002. The services of the projects' co-ordinator will also be retained for that period.

Certain second level schools are also designated by my Department as serving young people from areas of disadvantage. These schools now receive enhanced capitation grants, they are allocated concessionary ex-quota staffing – a ‘disadvantaged' post – and they receive support to make possible the full-time allocation of a teacher on home-school-community liaison duties.

I am engaged in preparing a multi-sectoral three-year programme that will assign a massive £193 million to the support of people at risk of or who are actually experiencing educational disadvantage. The funding will be assigned at pre-school level, at primary, post-primary and third levels and in the area of lifelong and continuing education.

At primary level, I have commissioned a survey of all primary schools by the Educational Research Centre, Drumcondra and that work is nearing completion. The purpose of the survey is to identify those schools that have the highest levels of concentration of pupils with background characteristics associated with educational disadvantage and early school leaving. This will greatly help us in tackling disadvantage.

I will make significant financial and staffing resources available in September to the selected schools that have the highest concentrations of at risk pupils and these resources will be increased substantially over the following two years. The supports will be allocated on a new basis that will differ significantly from the designated school approach at present in operation.

Supports for second-level schools under the new programme will be allocated under the "Stay in School" retention initiative. This initiative is concerned with increasing completion rates to senior cycle through strategies that counteract early school leaving. Selected schools must work in co-operation with local statutory and voluntary agencies to prepare plans to support young people at risk and their families. There are currently 57 schools in the initiative and I have decided to increase this number to 116 schools next September. I have also decided to recruit another co-ordinator, in addition to the existing two co-ordinators, to support the development of the initiative in schools.

I am satisfied the strategies outlined are those most supportive of schools, teachers and parents. The most effective route to improving reading standards in schools generally and to reducing the numbers of pupils with serious learning difficulties in literacy and numeracy is at the level of the individual pupil in the individual school. I will give every support to teachers and their pupils in tackling the persistent proportion of the community whose talents have been neglected for far too long.

I have noted the points raised by Members and I hope they recognise that the Government will implement a major plan of action during the next two years. This plan will have a major impact in terms of resolving the problems to which they referred.

Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science (Ms Hanafin):

Everyone agrees that education provides an escape from deprivation and unemployment and, for most people, it represents the guarantee of a good future. The majority of Members will also agree that our education system, particularly the parts which relate to technology and computers, is the foundation on which the success enjoyed by the State is based. Successive Governments have responded to that success by ensuring that investment has been made in the areas to which I refer.

It is the priority of this Government that investment should be made, not only at the top but also at the lowest levels of society. We should not lose sight of the fact that basic literacy and numeracy are crucial to success in other spheres. People from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with special needs deserve additional attention, funding and support.

The focus in schools has changed in recent years. Many demands are being placed on teachers and schools, not merely in terms of providing extra-curricular activities but, for example, in teaching computer science and foreign languages in primary schools and in ensuring that all students in secondary school pursue science subjects. It is, perhaps, as a result of this change in focus that basic skills such as reading and numeracy were not given sufficient attention.

The Government has adopted a new approach which emphasises the importance of reading. It gave grants to school libraries last year for the purpose of buying new books and this development has encouraged young people to read. The calibre of books on offer has improved greatly in recent years. When I launched the "Children's Books Ireland" summer school recently, I asked that those responsible for running the school focus directly on the needs of children rather than on those of librarians, teachers and parents. This will encourage young people to abandon their Gameboys and computer games, develop a love of learning and reading and improve themselves.

It is unfortunate, but studies and surveys show that too many 11 year olds are not reaching the required standard in numeracy and literacy. I suggest that earlier testing might ensure that this problem is identified and addressed at an earlier stage. By training more remedial teachers, giving every school in the country access to them and ensuring that they operate in classes with a low pupil-teacher ratio and by decreasing the pupil-teacher ratio in general, we have created a situation where children receive more attention. The home-school liaison scheme offers encouragement to parents, through their involvement in the scheme, who did not ever have an opportunity to advance their education. These initiatives are working.

Schools have shown great resourcefulness in this area. A school in my locality has identified 20 students, carried out psychological assessments in respect of them, recognised the level of their learning abilities and set about giving them the attention they require. The school is working with local agencies and the parents of the children to provide individual programmes which are supported by their teachers and the Department.

Given that learning difficulties must be identified early, the Government is correct to focus on primary schools. When children with such difficulties reach second level, nothing can be done for them because of the nature of the curriculum and the pressure caused by examinations. However, three levels have been introduced in respect of the junior certificate which means that the pressure will be taken off those students who cannot perform as well as others. They will now be able to achieve success at a lower level. It is appropriate to mention this development given that so many children started examinations today. The number of additional remedial teachers working in disadvantaged areas has proven a great help in this regard, as has the increased involvement of parents.

I am particularly interested in children with special needs. Having visited one of the special schools recently, I can only commend and congratulate those involved for the tremendous work they do. The special schools are an example of the way the Departments of Education and Science and Health and Children can work closely together. However, increasing numbers of parents want their children to be integrated into mainstream schools. It is important that the two Departments work to ensure that those children who move out of special education do not lose any of the special attention they receive – I refer here to the provision of medical facilities, etc. – and that they continue to receive it when they enter the mainstream education system. These children deserve our specific attention and the Government is working towards catering for them in order that we do not continue with the problem of adult illiteracy we have already witnessed. Teenage girls who become pregnant and want to leave school deserve particular attention and I hope the expenditure in the area of child care will ensure that more community groups are established to prevent such young women from abandoning their education. I hope that through the Education (Welfare) Bill, they will be tracked to ensure they gain the full benefits of education.

The Government is committed to providing resources and supports to ensure that education, from the bottom basic level to the top technological level, is serviced.

Ms Shortall:

On the day on which 120,000 students sat the first papers in their junior and leaving certificate examinations, it is appropriate and important that we consider the many thousands of people which the State education system has failed, those people who should, by right, be sitting exams today but who, through educational disadvantage, are not participating.

One of the biggest failures of our education system to date has been the failure to target substantial resources and supports at children who are educationally disadvantaged. Today, there is no excuse for this failure as money is available. The problem now appears to be a lack of political will on the part of the Government.

The manner in which the previous Minister survived his period in office was extraordinary. We should not be too hard on the current Minister as he has only been in office for a short time but we have every right to be very critical of his predecessor, Deputy Martin, whose term of office was marked by a triumph of image over substance. He adopted a scatter-gun approach and, through a well oiled PR machine, managed to come through a three year period as Minister for Education and Science quite unscathed and with his public image enhanced. Public opinion will, on closer examination, change in regard to the lack of achievement in education over the past three years.

Deputy Martin failed to target the educationally disadvantaged. He gave a little bit to everybody and while that may have been successful in keeping teachers' unions on board, it did not do anything to tackle the very serious problems of educational disadvantage. None of these problems is insurmountable and they could all be dealt with if a systematic and determined approach to tackling them were adopted. We are not talking about very widespread problems, rather we are talking about very serious problems concentrated in a relatively small number of areas. All that is required to tackle them is political will and additional funding. Unfortunately, that will has not been evident to date. During Deputy Martin's three year term of office, he did not do anything at all to assist areas of educational disadvantage. He did not introduce any educational initiatives, nor did he expand the existing ones which had been put in place by his predecessor.

The current Minister, on taking up office, announced that he would make a priority of tackling educational disadvantage. I hope he will and am sure that Deputy Bruton, like myself, will pursue him on that. We will watch the Minister very closely because this is an area which has been very seriously neglected in recent years. We have yet to see any substance in regard to the Minister's promise. The Minister, in his speech, appeared to be attempting to draw a line in the sand under the work of his predecessor because there is very little to boast about from the past in regard to educational disadvantage. The Minister did not really have any option but to speak about his intentions for the future.

A large part of the Minister's speech was quite worthy in regard to his aspirations but three years have already been lost and this Government does not have much longer to run. We need urgent action in the areas which have been crippled by the lack of adequate investment. It is interesting to observe what is happening in areas in which drug task forces have been set up as these are the most disadvantaged areas in many different ways, including educationally. Each of those task forces has come to the conclusion in recent years that the missing link in regard to tackling disadvantage is the failure of the Department of Education and Science to play a full part. The task forces, which have carried out very thorough and intensive examinations on the ground, have highlighted the type of issues which have led to widespread disadvantage in their areas.

The familiar chant by this Government of what the previous Government did or did not do is simply not acceptable in this debate. The Government has three years under its belt but, unfortunately, has little or nothing to show in terms of dealing with special education needs, particularly in disadvantaged areas. Not only has the Government not extended or built upon the initiatives which were in place but, in some cases, it has watered them down. I am referring in particular to the very successful Breaking the Cycle scheme. To date, the Minister has not come up with any ideas in regard to this scheme.

Earlier today I read an Adjournment debate matter raised by my colleague, Deputy Upton, last week on the Breaking the Cycle scheme in regard to the variation in numbers and the withdrawal of teachers. When the scheme was set up initially, a commitment was given that teachers would not be withdrawn for the five year duration of the pilot scheme. Unfortunately, that commitment has been rolled back by the current Government. It was interesting to read the reply from the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science, Deputy O'Dea, in which he did not really offer any kind of defence because there is not any defence to a broken promise. In the course of his five minute reply, the Minister of State failed to tackle the issue or to offer any hope to the schools in which the scheme is operating which face teacher losses. Perhaps the Minister will clarify this issue for us as he was unable to be present for the Adjournment debate in question. It is outrageous that where schools have invested a huge effort and where the operation of the Breaking the Cycle scheme has resulted in very real gains which continue to increase, much of that work is to be set at nought by the withdrawal of teachers.

It is undeniable that the problem of lower literacy and numeracy is concentrated by and large in areas of social disadvantage. Under the previous Administration, an effort was made for the first time to reduce this problem through the introduction of the Breaking the Cycle scheme. It is one thing not to extend the programme but it is another to ignore the ground rules and roll back on earlier commitments.

The people who remain long-term unemployed or those who are only marginally attached to the labour force have not benefited from the education system. They did not receive the support they deserved. In classes of 30, 40 or 50 people, they were not catered for because of the failure to target their special education needs. The Government's decision to dilute the Breaking the Cycle scheme is extraordinary and will create a very familiar destiny for children who have been educationally disadvantaged. The life prospects of a 12 or 13 year old child who has dropped out of school are bleak and the likelihood is that he or she will be long-term unemployed. There is also a strong possibility that such people will become involved in drugs abuse or delinquency and become homeless at some point in their young lives.

Many appalling prospects face young people who drop out of school at an early age. That these figures continue to be so high is an extraordinary indictment of a Government and an education system which has access to funding and research, and which should know better. The Government knows where resources should be targeted and yet does not have the will to put them there.

Recent figures show that the investment by the State in the various stages of education increases as one goes through the different stages. State investment in primary level is £1,786 per pupil and rises to more than £4,000 per student at third level. For those few children who have access to State-funded early education in the form of Early Start, the investment is £1,430 per pupil. Clearly this anomaly represents a need to balance expenditure and focus more resources on the child's formative years in the education system.

Pre-school has been identified as a crucial intervention in preventing early school leaving. However, access to pre-school is very limited and has simply not been a focus for attention by the Government. It was interesting to listen to the Minister's 25 minute speech, and I do not believe he once referred to pre-school education.

Dr. Woods:

I mentioned it at the beginning.

Ms Shortall:

This is an area which traditionally has been the Cinderella of the education system and while the Minister has responsibility for it, there is little or no investment in it. In spite of recent work we still do not know the Minister's intentions with regard to developing this area. There has been a scatter-gun approach and much of this has been left to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform on the grounds that there will be child care developments if parents are facilitated in returning to the workforce but not once are the children's' needs referred to or their rights to have access to early education. The reality is that parents who can afford pre-school services will avail of private services which are operated locally, but where people cannot pay for a private service or where private services simply are not available in local areas because they may not be feasible financially, or there may not be somebody in the local area who is prepared to provide pre-school services, often children in disadvantaged areas start school at the age of four or five already at a disadvantage compared to their classmates or certainly compared to the four and five year olds starting school down the road in the local middle class school. Unless there is early intervention, those kinds of problems will simply be compounded where there are children starting at a disadvantage and the gap will widen as the child progresses in the school system.

Early intervention has been recognised generally as an important tool in childhood services. Individual attention in the classroom, which can only be delivered through increased provision of remedial teachers and smaller class sizes, will ensure greater progression of students in the education system.

When a child starts school, detection of learning problems should be identified at as early an age as possible. If there was a properly funded pre-school service, this could happen from the age of three. What could be done if problems were being detected at that stage rather than left to fester until, if the child is lucky, his or her problem is picked up at the age of nine or ten or even later, when the child has to wait a considerable time for the appropriate service to take effect?

Once identified, adequate resources should be put in place to keep that child on a level playing pitch. However, as the House will be aware, the education system is far from being a level playing pitch. The likelihood is that those children who most need intervention and educational supports are those who are least likely to get them because the schools depend on significant fund-raising from the local parish and parents. It follows then that in areas where parents are badly off or are disadvantaged, money for schools simply is not there to fund the supplementary work of the schools which is so vital in all the other schools. Most schools could not imagine operating without that additional support from parents and the parish.

There should be a requirement to track a child's progress throughout primary level. Information obtained through the tracking programme should move with the child through the secondary school system. Too often secondary school principals will say that children of 12 or 13 arrive with nothing more than a recommendation that he is a grand fellow or she is a lovely girl, a recommendation regarding the child's behaviour. This is often a major concern in areas of disadvantage. There is not an academic record travelling with a child from primary school to secondary school and often a child's literacy or numeracy problems are picked up only half way through first year in secondary school. This is unacceptable. It is doing a serious disservice to young people that they can get to that stage in their lives before their problems are detected. If there was regular screening in primary school and there was regular record-keeping, those records then could move with the child into secondary schools and appropriate programmes could be put in place, if necessary, from the start.

For those children who drop out of the system, it is essential that they are not abandoned until their names turn up in the courts or in the home less figures. Children who drop out of school early become non-persons: there are no school records for them, and because they are too young to enter the labour market they do not turn up on welfare or tax records. The State must accept responsibility to follow up on early school leavers, examine their reasons for leaving school and offer them new alternatives to learn and develop skills so that they may become fully integrated in the labour market during their adult lives.

In too many cases the secondary schools are failing these young people who have literacy and numeracy problems. Often such children have behaviour problems also and the schools are only too happy to get rid of them. Part of the reason for this difficulty is that the problems are being detected at far too late a stage and the necessary supports are not available in the second level schools.

I am seriously concerned about the number of pilot projects in progress, particularly for early school drop-outs. I do not see why mainstream schools cannot cater for the vast majority of children attending there. Again it is a case of not targeting resources, adopting this scatter-gun approach where the Department gives a little to everybody. The Minister must provide the money to those areas which most need the resources. We have seen how successful that approach has been in Breaking the Cycle. That must be replicated in all areas of disadvantage and, in particular, at second level where it is possible to hold onto pupils who are exhibiting literacy or numeracy problems and who have behavioural problems. They need help when they are presenting with problems, not at a later point. Too often the Department of Education and Science and people involved in education such as teachers, administrators, etc., have been too keen to get rid of these troublesome students from the system.

Once they are out of the system for a few years the likelihood is that they will end up in the care of the State one way or another. Of course it is no longer the problem of the Department of Education and Science. This attitude of passing the buck must change. We need long-term preventative work and an act of faith on the part of politicians and, in particular, the Government by investing in resources which will not necessarily yield dividends next year or in two or three years. After all, the education system is about long-term investment. That act of faith needs to be made by sitting politicians in terms of the allocation of resources to areas which will not necessarily yield results for many years.

Debate adjourned.